


With Both Hands

by crackinthecup



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Horror, Mentions of Violence, Spiders, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/pseuds/crackinthecup
Summary: “This is my domain, Dark One,” Ungoliant said, and her body was revealed in the light of Melkor’s gaze, dark and heavy and sagging, splayed across her webs like a hole through the fabric of the world. She dwarfed Melkor by her sheer size. “Our ties were broken long ago. You promised that I would feed to my heart’s content and beyond, yet I was hungry then, and I am hungry still. Begone! I owe you nothing.”It is said in the Silmarillion that Melkor went to Avathar to seek out Ungoliant and plot his revenge with her. This is the story of their meeting.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	With Both Hands

**Author's Note:**

> The last sentence is paraphrased from the published Silm.

There was no life here at the feet of the Pélori, in the forgotten south of Aman. No wind stirred; no creature moved. It was a region of ever-lasting shadow, untainted by the light of the Two Trees.

Melkor walked on the grey sand towards the heart of the darkness, and found himself thinking of home. The constant din of mirth and industry and day-to-day life that filled the corridors of Utumno and later Angband, the glower of lava deep under the mountains, the snowflakes that could be seen from the highest towers as they drifted cold and silent through the air.

Utumno had been laid waste in the war against the Valar, the work of millennia scoured from the earth in an eyeblink of hateful violence. Angband had fared little better, and Melkor trusted in the cunning of his lieutenant to set things to rights in his absence.

Regardless, it would not be long now until he returned to his subjects and took up his throne once more. And what a return it would be! He would restore darkness to the world, and would return to his lands as the sole bearer of the Valar’s holy light. _His_ light, for he was the rightful King of Arda while his brethren sat their false thrones behind their impassable mountains and took no care for the fate of the world. He would teach them the meaning of loss.

But first, he needed an ally on these friendless shores.

He knew where he was headed by rumour, and the hum of a familiar power on the edges of his consciousness, ancient and hungry. The Elves would not brave the wastes of Avathar. They whispered of a nameless dread, shadows as thick as mountain roots blocking out all sight and sound and thought of hope. The Valar, for their part, took no action against the creature that had taken up residence there; it was beyond their mountains, and therefore beyond their concern.

But Melkor was not his brethren; his might was not theirs. Ungoliant had sworn allegiance to him before, and he would see that allegiance restored.

So he pressed on, deeper and deeper into that pathless land towards a cleft in the mountains where the darkness was thickest. As soon as he set foot inside the ravine, everything seemed to fall dead. There was gloom here deeper than anything he himself had conjured in the blackest pits of his fortresses. It was not a lack of light, but darkness that had never known the existence of anything else, black even as the furthest reaches of the Void that he had walked when time was young.

He drew himself up to his full height and strode on amid the shadows. There was a presence here that he could not see, the weight of many eyes watching his every move, assessing, weighing him up. There was no malice in that ceaseless gaze, but neither was there benevolence; it was the tight awareness of a predator challenged in its lair.

“Reveal yourself!” Melkor cried. At his words, a strange, hollow laughter filled the ravine, echoing off the stone walls as though a thousand voices lurked in the gloom.

He heard movement far above him: a creak, a slide, the heaving of something of immense bulk.

“You do not command me, Discord-weaver,” replied a voice, thin and warped. It used a language that had no name on the shores of Middle-earth, a blend of ancient Valarin and thoughts turned to images turned to sounds that filtered into Melkor’s mind. It was the language of the black spaces between the stars, the emptiness that came before creation itself.

“You pledged yourself to me once,” Melkor said, reverting to the same language, half-forgotten during his long years ruling the affairs of the world. He did not speak with cruelty, no, that would not serve him here; but he spoke firmly, and his tone brooked no argument. “I come here as your lord, and the rightful King of Arda. I expect you to honour your allegiance.”

Laughter sounded again, shrill and mocking, accompanied by the scuttle of arachnid feet drawing ever closer. Melkor stood undaunted, but his eyes gleamed cold and piercing at Ungoliant’s brazenness, and for a moment that fey light fought against the gloom and won.

“This is my domain, Dark One,” Ungoliant said, and her body was revealed in the light of Melkor’s gaze, dark and heavy and sagging, splayed across her webs like a hole through the fabric of the world. She dwarfed Melkor by her sheer size. “Our ties were broken long ago. You promised that I would feed to my heart’s content and beyond, yet I was hungry then, and I am hungry still. Begone! I owe you nothing.”

Slowly the light dimmed as Melkor gathered his power close to him. Shadows swept back in like the tide, and Ungoliant’s terrible bulk was concealed once more. All that remained was the gleam of her eyes, trained onto Melkor with unblinking intensity.

“Do not be quick to lay blame where none is deserved,” Melkor countered, and his voice seemed fairer than it had been a moment ago, fair and honest and wise. “My designs for Middle-earth were perforce turned to warfare when my brethren came marching across my lands and wrested the fate of the world from my hands. But no more: I will return, but I do not intend to return quietly. The Valar showed their true faces in their treatment of me during my unlawful imprisonment, and their disregard for the lives of my subjects and all beings whose existence they deem lesser than their own. They would have us grovel at their feet, crawl on our bellies like abject beasts and burrow deep into the earth where they would never have to lay eyes on us again. I will not allow them to rule me or you or any one of us with such cruelty. Therefore here I stand, my heart laid bare, to ask for your aid in taking our revenge against them.”

The last echoes of Melkor’s words faded away, and in their wake came silence, deep as the deepest sea. Minutes passed, or perhaps hours or even days; time held no meaning in that forsaken place, but for this, Melkor had all the patience in the world.

At last Ungoliant stirred. “What is your plan?” she asked, and in the darkness Melkor smiled.

“There are two Trees in the heart of Valinor, and from them spills eternal light, silver and gold, and their glowing droplets are gathered in large vats, and the memory of them is reflected in innumerable jewels.” He paused, weaving images of light and lust and full bellies, images that he pushed into Ungoliant’s mind; he left out any glimpse or hint of the Silmarils. “The Trees must be destroyed, the vats emptied, and the jewels claimed as our own.”

“I know those Trees.” As Ungoliant spoke, her need quivered through her, so potent that Melkor could taste it on the air, and her eyes flickered wildly as though she might catch a glimpse of the Trees through the rock of her ravine. “Their light used to shine over the tips of the mountains, even here where the Valar do not come. But it was scant, and I supped on it till there was not an atom left at all. I remember how sweetly that light burned; it did not fill the belly, but it thrilled, oh how delectably it thrilled! I would like to taste it again.”

“You can—join me and I give you my word that you will taste it again.”

“Not so fast, Discord-weaver,” Ungoliant hissed, pinning him within her gaze once more, eyes glinting with a greedy light from the very depths of her being. “How do you intend to get to the Trees? They will be well-guarded.”

“Ah, not so,” Melkor answered, throwing his arms out wide as if to encompass the entire world. “It is a time of festival. The plains and woods and streets will be empty as Elves and Ainur alike make merry in Manwë’s halls.”

But at the sound of Manwë’s name a shudder seemed to go through Ungoliant, and the webs around her shook as she did, and the gloom receded until Melkor could plainly see the outline of her great bulk again.

“There will be a reckoning for this deed that you propose,” she said. “I have seen the wrath of the Master of the Airs. His light burns everything that it touches, and the spears of the Huntsman are sharp, and the gaze of the Kindler strips away the body until the spirit is left trembling. I will not aid you, Discord-weaver. It is folly.”

“Do as I bid,” Melkor said, and though his voice was soft there was power behind his words, intoxicating and inescapable, a web of compulsion that not even Ungoliant could escape; he felt her bulk swaying closer to him, and he smiled, baring his teeth, knowing that he had won. “And if you hunger still when all is done, then I will give you whatsoever your lust may demand. Yea, with both hands.”


End file.
